


mesh and metal

by aromantictracer



Series: McGenji Week 2016 [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sleeping Together, sex mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 03:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8384773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aromantictracer/pseuds/aromantictracer
Summary: Genji spends most of his nights anxious in his new body. He and Jesse have come up with a trick to ease the pain. Prompt fill for McGenji Week Day 1: Touch.





	

Spending his evenings feeling tight chested and vulnerable had become a regular part of Genji’s life. Even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to count how many nights he had spent wide awake, terrified of the foreign and synthetic yet incredibly real sensation of experiencing anxiety in his new body. To say that it was paralyzing would be an understatement.

So much of the cybernetics that he was made up of weren’t capable of any sensation of feeling. Emotions were more of a mental thing than anything else, but his body still reacted to them, even if in mechanical ways. When Genji was alone on nights like this, the sounds of the systems working hard inside of him to keep his body functions regulated just fueled his insomnia. When he experienced any sort of stress, fans would kick in, and numerous things of which he didn’t even understand would tap and click away inside of him.

Any internal physical reactions to emotion were dulled and strange, and he couldn’t wrap his mind around the way he experienced them. Human beings experienced anxiety through racing hearts and physically tight chests. Sometimes they would sweat and shake. Genji remembers that he used to get stomach aches.

Now, he just felt dull and empty. Stress was almost completely concentrated in his mind, but his chest still held a phantom ache, as if skin and bones were still within him instead of mesh and metal.

The sounds of Genji’s internal systems made his mind feel painfully numb. The indirect sensation of sheets sliding over the outside of his body when he shifted reminded him that he would never properly feel again. He was just mesh and metal, and even the dull pressure of Jesse’s fingers sliding up his arm reminded him that he would never experience the feeling of flesh on flesh in any normal way ever again.

Jesse.

Jesse made nights like this a little more bearable.

“What’re you thinkin’ about, lil’ bug?” His voice was warm puff of air against Genji’s cheek, nose brushing over an eyelid before being replaced by gentle lips. He pressed a kiss over Genji’s eyelashes and pulled back, prompting his question further with curious, sleep-clouded eyes.

Genji wanted to shiver every time Jesse touched his scar-sensitive eyelids. The top half of his face held all the skin that Genji had left on his body, and Jesse was the only person he was intimate enough with to give it attention. Surrounded by immovable metal from his forehead to the bridge of his nose, Genji’s face was burned and pink. Nowadays, the soft touches that Jesse liked to give him were often what kept Genji going when he was feeling down.

Genji couldn’t help but lean into the kiss, deciding to return the favor with a gentle swipe of his thumb over Jesse’s cheekbone.

“A lot of things,” Genji finally replied. Even through the synthetic speaker that allowed him to talk as omnics do, it was evident that his voice had cracked.

At that, Jesse frowned and wrapped an arm around Genji’s torso, pulling him close to his chest. Jesse had become a sort of regular in Genji’s bed, even more recently for the entire night. He knew the thoughts that plagued Genji when he tried to sleep, and was used to the way the man’s mind worked.

The two of them had gone through many sleepless nights together, and even though, before meeting Jesse, Genji had initially been prepared to isolate himself and endure his pain alone, Jesse hadn’t allowed it.

The man had come crashing into his life so unexpectedly that thinking about it left Genji feeling muddled and breathless. Jesse had gone from one extreme in Genji’s life to another. Genji had since decided that no matter how stubborn he was, Jesse was something that he had desperately needed at the time he had arrived.

Leaving his entire life and body behind, Genji had felt that in _this_ portion in his life his only function was to be a tool. When he allowed himself the honesty, he knew that these thoughts were true. He was just a consciousness put into a machine. A ghost manifested on the physical plane. A set of skills programmed into a cyborg body. To the agents he worked with, he knew that the rest of his experiences were just baggage. All they deemed useful was his ability to kill. Something that Genji had thought he would be free of once he left his family for good.

Thoughts and memories like these swirled around in his mind at night, and sometimes they were so loud he had to squeeze his eyes shut.

Jesse was the one real thing in Genji’s life as he knew it. He was something that helped remind Genji that he _was_ in fact human. Jesse had never once treated Genji like anything other than just another person in his life. At first, he had helped Genji cope in the one way he had always affectionately fallen back on in his previous life: sex. Although Jesse had not been Genji’s first partner since he had gained his new body, and he wouldn’t be his last, each meeting had helped assure Genji that he could still retain some of the parts of his identity that made him an individual.

Falling in love with Jesse had not been part of Genji’s plan, but it was something that had happened nonetheless.

He thought about this as he fingered at the hair on Jesse’s chest, forehead pressed into the larger man’s collarbone. Out of habit, he let out a shaky breath. In a normal body, the action would ease some of the tension in his chest. In Genji’s it did nothing but make a rattling hollow sound. He didn’t even have a mouth to puff out air, and the ache didn’t cease.

“I want to cry,” Genji whispered.

In all honesty, Genji wasn’t even sure if he _could_ cry. He experienced the emotions inside of him in such a synthetic way that he didn’t even know if it could spring reactions out of the organic parts of his face. He and Jesse had talked this over many times, and he knew that the statement came as no surprise to Jesse now. It was almost a nightly occurrence.

Genji felt the dull pressure of a hand coming up to rub at his artificial scalp. “I know. You need to sleep.”

He blinked against Jesse’s chest and focused on the beating of his own heart. Enhanced and upgraded as it was, it was one of the things that reminded Genji that he was still alive.

He rubbed a foot up Jesse’s calf. “Scratch my temples.”

Being able to hear Jesse’s fingernails run up and down his head always kept Genji feeling grounded and calm.

Usually, Jesse did it without being asked. It was part of their nightly routine, but tonight Genji knew that Jesse wasn’t going to last much longer. His breathing was beginning to deepen.

“Anything for you, baby,” came Jesse’s reply. It was barely audible. Despite being as close to sleep as he was, he was still somehow able to add a joking lilt to his tone.

The sound of Jesse’s nails was always enough to put Genji into a calming trance. It was one of the few things the two of them had discovered could ease Genji’s anxiety. His head was mostly inorganic, and the sensation seemed to bounce around within Genji’s faux skull to create a sort of white noise.

Closing his eyes, Genji reminded himself that come morning he would feel better. Jesse would still be there, and the sunlight would freshen his thoughts. For now, all he wanted to do was focus on Jesse’s touch.

Heaving out another sigh, Genji felt the man in front of him start sluggishly dragging his fingertips up and down Genji’s head. Jesse would surely fall asleep before Genji was even close to unconsciousness, but he relaxed into the touch nonetheless, allowing himself a moment’s peace before he would be alone with himself once again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> im really proud of myself for writing this tbh. i havent written in like 5 years. mcgenji week was good motivation to actually write and there are definitely more fics on the way


End file.
